


A Good Girl is Hard to Find (Ring of Fire side-story)

by shimanamii



Category: RWBY
Genre: (mild), F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, and some past freezerburn too bc weiss is GAY, hell YEAH i've finally written some schneekos, ring of fire side-story, spoiler: homoerotic water imagery bc that's just who i am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimanamii/pseuds/shimanamii
Summary: '“I’m running away for a bit,” Weiss said, abruptly. “Wanna come?”She’d expected Pyrrha to look surprised at the sudden invitation but instead her expression relaxed, like she’d been relieved of some suspense. “Sure.”She didn’t ask where they were going. Like it didn’t even matter.'A prequel to the events of Ring of Fire, in which Weiss tries to figure out Pyrrha's big secret but maybe the REAL secret was the True Love they found along the way :^)
Relationships: Pyrrha Nikos/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 28
Kudos: 120





	A Good Girl is Hard to Find (Ring of Fire side-story)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heartichoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heartichoke/gifts).



> welp, as it turns out, i'm SO glad i wrote this bc i really did find my Deep Affection for schneekos (and for weiss and pyrrha as characters) in this experience lmaoo
> 
> i wrote this as a b-day present for my good buddy caroline who i TREASURE, and i really hope she likes this lol! <33

Weiss had probably been more surprised than anybody.

Well, in some ways it hadn’t been _that_ surprising. Yang was Yang. Bright and bighearted, loud and strong and tender. Sometimes so tender, your chest squeezed hard enough that you felt as if you’d die from it. And, of course, it couldn’t hurt that she was, well. Hot. Objectively speaking. Weiss actually _would_ die before she told anyone this, but Yang was the kind of good-looking that sometimes, in the right angles, made it hard to look at anything else. It was a goddamn inconvenience.

So maybe the surprising part was that Yang—not just the girl who drew everybody’s eyes, but the girl who’d taught Weiss self-defense moves in her backyard when they were fifteen, the one who’d more or less stolen her first kiss when they were eleven but probably didn’t remember it—had wanted _her_.

Not that Weiss wasn’t wanted. Plenty of people did. They wanted her beauty and her name and her standing even in a backwater town like Remnant and, most of all, her father’s charity (not that he had any). So, the people who approached her always had plans. Everybody except Yang, and Ruby, who for whatever reason had brought Weiss into their fold a long time ago and had never really given her up.

Weiss even remembered the way Yang had asked her, the two of them sitting together in Jolene with the windows rolled down because the AC never worked. Alone, of course, and in that kind of lull that happened when Yang was thinking hard about something but didn’t know how to spit it out. (Which was noteworthy in itself. Yang usually always knew how to fill the silence.) They were—what? Seventeen? Kids. Different people almost entirely, but not quite.

_The radio was turned low, mostly static._

_“Felt almost like a date,” Yang said, after a long beat._

_Weiss was too busy wondering why Yang’s voice sounded so strange and thin to really register the words, themselves. “We just went to Port’s, though. Like always.”_

_“Yeah, but without Ruby there, it felt…different.” Yang gaze flicked up almost bashfully (bashful?_ Yang _?) to Weiss’s, and Weiss felt the prickle of something familiar. That feeling she got sometimes, or got lately, whenever Yang lazily threw her arm around her or played with her hair or when that big laugh of hers burst out of her._

_It was an annoying feeling. “Stop doing that. Stop messing with me.”_

_“I’m not messing with you.” She finally looked away, raking her hair back from her face. “I mean, why don’t we? Try it out?”_

_There was rarely a time Weiss couldn’t make sense of her own thoughts—even when things were at their worst, it felt like someone was there, in her head, coolly diagnosing her—but watching Yang, watching her lean her head on her arms against the steering wheel, Weiss was only aware of how fucking sweaty her hands suddenly felt. And of Yang’s eyes on her again._

This could be bad, _she thought. Sometimes it felt like her father would know about it if she even_ imagined _it. Not just dating a girl, but a girl’s hands on her waist, feeling that prickly feeling all over her skin for a girl, how soft a girl’s mouth would be. Even how it would feel to kiss Yang in particular. For real this time, so she’d remember._

_“Going out, you mean?” It was a wonder Weiss could speak, with her mouth feeling as full-of-cotton as it did._

_Yang gave a soft chuckle, lifting her head. She touched Weiss’s cheek, just with the tips of her fingers, and all Weiss could do was go still. “You can say no. You won’t hurt my feelings.”_

_“Kiss me,” Weiss blurted. Yang’s eyes went almost comically wide, and Weiss flushed. “I mean…I’ve been…curious.”_

_Her answering smirk almost made Weiss want to revoke the offer. Almost. “I know you have,” she said._

_And of course she knew. They were best friends. It wasn’t complete cockiness (this time) on Yang’s part—she just knew. She’d noticed it a long time ago, probably._

_Yang bent her head, her hand falling to Weiss’s shoulder, and kissed her. Her mouth was softer, even, than Weiss had been expecting, and there was a carefulness to it that Weiss_ definitely _hadn’t been expecting. Because Yang wasn’t careful with herself. She wore her bruises and scrapes like badges and never quite seemed to remember where she’d gotten them. But Yang was careful with Weiss, and she took her time with the kiss._

Weiss wasn’t sure why she was remembering that _now_ , after everything that’d happened. Maybe she was feeling a little nostalgic, like if she could feel seventeen again, feel her own heartbeat like that again, just for one night—or if she could go back in time. Keep things from falling apart, keep Yang from being uncareful with herself yet again and leaving everyone behind.

It was hard not to be angry, but Weiss didn’t really know who she was angriest at. At Yang for lying, for not trusting her enough, for letting things get so bad between them in the middle of all that lying? At herself for not pushing anything, at being afraid of pushing things? It was easiest to throw all of that rage at Raven, that woman who’d imposed herself on the daughter she’d abandoned when it suited her and blew up Yang’s life on her way out. But Raven, of course, was gone. And Yang was gone, too—actual fucking prison, as if _that_ was something Weiss ever believed could happen. They’d always joked about it, sure, about Yang’s wildness, but reality wasn’t funny at all. She was sure that nothing suited Yang less than a concrete cell.

So that was where her life had brought her, almost four years after that sparkling, awkward, impossibly simple seventeen-year-old kiss. Things were shit. Yang wouldn’t use her calls, or see anyone, and there was hardly anyone left who wanted to see her, anyway. Ruby dutifully sent letters but hadn’t yet gotten any back. Tai was a little bit like that husk of himself again, the person he’d been (or as Yang had described him to her) after Summer’s death. Spring Hill still looked like a scar.

And Weiss couldn’t stop bumping into Pyrrha Nikos.

She liked Pyrrha. Everyone did. Well, the truth was people had always been a little obsessed with her, and for good reason. By all accounts, the girl was a saint. Warm and dependable, always as serene as someone sitting for a picture. Never cruel, though she didn’t abide narrow-mindedness, either. She didn’t hold grudges—couldn’t seem to hold any ugliness in her at all, actually—and didn’t seem to hold anything against Yang for what had happened at Spring Hill. In school, predictably, she’d been everybody’s goddess, the track and field captain, perfect grades and no bad blood with anyone (at least, nothing mutual). Taller than most of the boys, a graceful and effortless beauty (as if that was fair). Kind eyes. Only a shredded Achilles tendon senior year had stopped her from getting some full-ride track scholarship, but she seemed to take even _that_ in stride—so to speak. And that was pretty much the extent of Weiss’s intel, even though they’d been in each other’s orbit for years.

Therein probably lay the issue. Weiss just couldn’t seem to get a read on that girl, not in the way she could see through most people. It was frustrating to admit, but she couldn’t quite crack the enigma of that infinite composure—if there was anything to _crack_ to begin with. Maybe there were just some people who were exactly as they seemed.

The world would probably be better that way, if no one surprised you. If no one came along and made you wonder if you’d ever really looked at them properly to start with.

But Pyrrha was smiling at her _like that_ again from across Port’s—in a way that either held a dozen different secret meanings or none at all—and Weiss couldn’t help but feel…provoked. Like there was something to be lost, or worth losing, if she brushed this feeling off now. If she didn’t at least make an attempt to root out that mythical weak point.

“It feels like we’ve been running into each other all week,” Pyrrha said, resting a hand on the booth opposite Weiss, but she didn’t look put off by that fact. She looked pleased, a bit flushed. “Looking for company?”

“Honestly can’t imagine anyone who’d turn you down,” Weiss said, leaning her cheek into her hand and trying not to be too obvious about her once-over. Just a little intel-gathering, but maybe to Pyrrha it looked more like ogling.

Pyrrha seemed to notice the extra attention, but she didn’t call her on it. “Huh. You never struck me as the sweet-talking type.” She sat down across from her, mirroring Weiss’s pose. “That almost sounded like a Yang line.”

“Please don’t insult me like that.” It was just a little mysterious, like she’d known Weiss had been thinking about Yang just then. And it was almost easy to joke about her like that, now that it’d been so long, a year. Almost easy, but not quite. Something still stuck in her throat. “Just stating a fact, I thought.”

Pyrrha seemed to have this habit of holding your gaze longer than most people ever did. Not like she was picking you apart—like she was interested. Weiss wanted to tell her that people might get the wrong idea, but didn’t. She didn’t feel up to explaining just what kind of _wrong idea_ she meant.

After a moment, Pyrrha let her hand fall into her lap. “I think it’s the way you say things like they’re obvious is why it’s…different.” _Different?_ She changed tacks before Weiss could ask her what she meant, though: “I hear Yang’s still been keeping to herself.”

Weiss snorted. “That’s a way to put it, I guess. Yeah, she’s been keeping a _lot_ of things to herself lately.” She paused, hearing herself, the spike of that anger in her. That was probably more than Pyrrha (altruistic as she was) wanted to deal with. “Sorry if you were expecting an update on the whole…Yang situation. But I’m as in the dark as anybody.”

Not that it made her happy to admit. Yang could at least write back to _Ruby_ , for God’s sake. She was just being self-centered at this point, too wrapped up, no doubt, in all that useless shame she’d inflicted on herself.

“I do worry about Yang, but it’s not like I came over to talk about her specifically,” Pyrrha said, cutting into her thoughts. “I came over to—well, to see how _you_ were doing. It’s been a while since we’ve really talked, and you don’t seem to talk to anyone else these days, either. Or so I hear.”

It threw her for an entirely new loop. If this wasn’t about Yang, who had definitely been closer to Pyrrha than Weiss had ever been, then why did she _care_ how Weiss was doing? The million ways everything with Yang still broke her heart? Who she talked to, or, rather, who she didn’t talk to?

The ugly thought rose up in her that maybe she was being pitied. “Um, what have you heard?”

Well, not that the look Pyrrha was giving her looked pitying. But Weiss could see that she _knew_. About the fallout, about her disinheritance. All of it. The rumor mill never stopped turning, after all, not even when your life did.

“I don’t pay it much mind, you know. The talk.” Pyrrha leaned back, chewing her lip. “But I heard you’ve had to make your own way lately.”

“‘Make my own way,’” she echoed, incredulous. And then, before she could stop herself, “Do you always have to sugarcoat things like that?”

Pyrrha’s eyes widened for a moment, and Weiss wondered if she’d struck some nerve, even a small one. Maybe that meant she was getting somewhere. “Sorry,” she murmured. “That’s a bad habit of mine.”

The corner of Weiss’s mouth quirked up. “I didn’t know you had any of those.”

“Well,” she said, pausing just a little too long over the word, “I’ve got a few I haven’t been able to shake, I guess.”

And that smile again. Unreadable as ever, where you couldn’t know how deep beneath the skin it really went. It still frustrated her, but…the way Pyrrha looked down, the way her eyelashes cast small shadows on her cheeks. How her slender fingers folded the straw paper into squares, how she slowly pulled her lower lip between her teeth again—maybe those things interested her. A little. There’d always been this magnetism to Pyrrha that didn’t announce itself (probably why it was so dangerous—no signs to warn against wading out too far). You just wanted to know what she was thinking. What she thought of you.

Of course, Weiss told herself she wanted to crack the “invincible girl” for the sake of doing it, for the sake of imagining that she was the first to do it. There was no other reason she needed.

“I’m running away for a bit,” Weiss said, abruptly. “Wanna come?”

She’d expected Pyrrha to look surprised at the sudden invitation but instead her expression relaxed, like she’d been relieved of some suspense. “Sure.”

She didn’t ask where they were going. Like it didn’t even matter.

~

“Hey, Weiss?” Pyrrha gestured to the sun-bleached sign, half-hidden in the long, dry grass: _PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING_. “Looks like it’s a private beach.”

Weiss snorted softly. “My family’s, actually.” She pointed across the river, and Pyrrha’s gaze followed her hand. “The beach house is over on that little island. In the middle of those trees.” There was a mist that ringed the island, making the old house look farther than it was. Weiss started picking her way across the sand, over to the weathered pier with the rowboat stranded beneath it, almost invisible. Sea glass gleamed dully amongst the crushed shells and driftwood. “I guess I’m just like every other trespasser now, though…”

Pyrrha caught up to her easily, clasping her wrist behind her back. “You seem to be in a rule-breaking mood today, though.”

Weiss bit back a smile. She couldn’t help but think that Yang would’ve said something less subtle. Like, _Well, fuck ‘em_. Ruby would’ve made a face, that furrowed look she got when she was trying to think of something reassuring to say. Everyone had their own clumsy way of being kind, Weiss supposed. Even saints.

“I didn’t used to be, you know. A rule-breaker.” She stooped, finding a smooth, intact olive shell and turning it over in her hands. “Or maybe I always was, beneath the surface. But that didn’t matter as much as the costume.”

Pyrrha crouched down beside her, her long ponytail falling over one shoulder. “Yeah,” she breathed. “I get that.”

“You? A rule-breaker?”

She chuckled. “I was talking about the costume part.”

“Ah.”

“I could break a few rules if I wanted to, though.”

“Sure you could.” That was pretty cute, though. The way pleading her case had the opposite effect. Weiss almost felt like a bad influence—which was certainly a new feeling. “I didn’t think you were about costumes, either. I don’t think anyone would expect that.”

When she turned her head, Pyrrha was already looking back, her eyebrows slightly lifted. “So I _am_ being studied.”

Weiss flushed. Damn, she was a sharp one. “Okay, well, you make it sound—”

“Like the truth?”

“Like it’s all ulterior motives.”

Pyrrha found a pale blue piece of sea glass and pocketed it. “It’s not?” And now that Weiss was looking for it, she could almost see the run in the costume, the way Pyrrha _almost_ gave a convincing performance of someone who wasn’t interested in the answer to that.

She wouldn’t be surprised if Pyrrha was well-acquainted with that same type Weiss had always known, those people with plans. Or worse, the people who just wanted to see her fall. No one could really blame her if she was always secretly on her guard. Weiss had the suspicion that Pyrrha’s walls were harder to spot, that when you ran up against them, it was like running up against thick glass. That it came as a surprise.

“Not all of it.” Weiss stood and brushed off her knees before she could give Pyrrha the chance to pick that apart.

“Glad to hear,” Pyrrha said, falling in step with her again. “I was happy enough for the invitation, though. Do you…come here a lot?”

“Not since I was a kid. It’s been a—well, it’s been a long time, I guess. I’ve been meaning to come back here.”

“Sounds like there are a few good memories, then.”

Weiss stepped to the edge of the pier, tossing the shell into the water. “Some of them? Sure.” Pyrrha had a way of watching you sometimes without looking at you, but with her head slightly cocked in a way that told you she was listening. It made you feel like you could say almost anything. (It made Weiss forget that she was supposed to be the one on the other end of the questioning. In theory.) “My sister would drive my brother and me out here sometimes when things at home got—when they got too hectic.” Almost the truth. “We used to take the old rowboat under the dock over to the house.”

“And the house is empty now?”

Weiss almost laughed at the thought, dragging Whitley out of his room and their mother out of her wine-coma in the garden to play pretend as an ordinary family at the beach. “It’s been empty for a while.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before Pyrrha hopped down onto the bank to drag the faded blue and white boat from the grass, clearing debris away from inside of it. She hefted one of the oars over her shoulder. “You know, I’m kinda curious about it. That house. And since nobody’s home…mind giving me the tour?”

She was doing it again. Being considerate of Weiss without saying it, intuiting all the things Weiss wouldn’t even say aloud. It almost pissed her off, having everything flipped around on her like that. Then again, it made her feel some different kind of way, too, something that warmed her. (What way? Curious? Strangely cared-for?) She wondered why Pyrrha went to the trouble at all. It could be that was just who she was—she went to the trouble. Weiss doubted trouble ever came to her first.

“It’s not very stable,” Weiss said, helping her shove the ancient thing out onto the water.

Pyrrha put one foot down inside the boat, offering a hand. “I’m stable enough, though.”

 _You might be the most stable person I know,_ she thought, taking Pyrrha’s hand. She’d been right to say it. You took that hand and knew that nothing could throw her. She’d bend, that hand would dip to your pressure, but she wouldn’t let you fall.

That said, the first few swings of the oars splashed awkwardly in the water, which Weiss almost (a little meanly, she’d admit) felt pleased about. “First-time rower?”

“Don’t look so surprised.” Pyrrha readjusted her grip, and Weiss pretended not to watch the leap in the muscles of her forearms. (Okay, she didn’t have a _type_. It was just. Well, when something like that caught your eye, there was no helping it.) “I’ll get it in a second.”

“Winter was always the one who did that when we were kids. Not that I feel like giving it a shot _now_ , either. Yang told me once I had ‘ribbons for arms.’” She turned her arm over, pressing it flush with Pyrrha’s, which was as suntanned and strong-looking and long as Weiss’s wasn’t. “See? Totally different. It’s embarrassing.”

Surprisingly, Pyrrha didn’t chuckle or look up to tease her—she just blinked once and pushed the oars forward again. “So…you and your siblings. I guess you used to be pretty close.”

“Oh, we don’t seem close now?” Pyrrha just lifted her eyebrows again and Weiss sighed. It didn’t even take someone as perceptive as Pyrrha to figure _that_ out. “It’s never been like…you know, like Yang and Ruby. But maybe we were close once, me and Winter. Whitley’s always been hard to read, but…Winter looked out for me in her own way.” Until she didn’t. “She always wanted me to be able to stand on my own, be strong enough to handle anything. So maybe I owe something to her.”

“I don’t have siblings or anything, so I might be wrong in this,” Pyrrha said. “But you sound like you’re angry at her. Or maybe it’s loneliness.”

Weiss realized she’d gotten caught saying too much again. “Being an only child wasn’t lonely?” she asked, instead of answering.

“Just how it always was. I don’t know if I ever felt lonely over it.” Pyrrha stopped rowing for a moment, and the boat drifted in a half-circle in the water. “I’ve always been curious, though, I think. About what it’s like.”

The thing was, Weiss _was_ angry. Some days she felt like her anger was the only thing propelling her from one damn thing to another. And she was angry over the same old hurt—being left behind, being disappointed. Over her loneliness. Which was just more of what she’d always had. It was an emotion she didn’t need, useless and sad and suffocating.

“My sister…” Weiss sighed and picked at the chipped paint on the lip of the boat. Well, Winter had joined the military as soon as she could and had gotten the fuck out of Remnant. Weiss couldn’t really blame her for anything. But she couldn’t seem to lose that ache of betrayal, either. “I guess it’s just…sad. Realizing you can only rely on yourself.”

Pyrrha lifted a hand from the oar like she was about to reach out and touch Weiss’s knee, but in the end, she just let it fall and skim the water. Still, Weiss’s skin hummed with the ghost of that feeling. Maybe taking her hand back on the shore had been a mistake. Facing each other now in the tiny rowboat, their legs intertwined but not quite touching, there really was no escaping anything. (Why was she suddenly so aware of that, the way she felt too close to her and too far at the same time? The way their bodies felt like the matching ends of magnets?)

“I think you’ve gotten too used to being lonely,” Pyrrha finally said, and it was like something had cut straight through her, had punctured her heart, and everything in it could only flood the empty places.

And her anger flared up like it always did when she didn’t know what to do with herself, but it felt different than the other times. It felt personal, like it actually _belonged_ to her. The last thing Weiss wanted was to snap at _Pyrrha_ of all people, especially when all she was doing was trying to help, but she couldn’t stop herself—the words spilled out of her like molten metal. “I think you’re worrying too much about other people. Like you really have no idea how lonely _you_ sounded, just then,” she said, bristling, her voice low. “You spend all this time trying to fix everyone else’s problems, but you’re someone who can’t even practice what she preaches.”

Pyrrha’s eyes went wide and she seemed stunned completely speechless by Weiss’s sudden outburst. She’d finally managed to rattle her, the invincible girl, but the victory felt hollow. Felt cruel. Weiss wished she hadn’t said anything.

Her face burned. “Sorry, I…I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

“But you did mean it,” Pyrrha said, softly, recovering a little. She lifted her hand and water streamed down her wrist. “Didn’t you?”

“I…” It was just impossible to lie to those eyes. They were the same warm green color as sunlight through leaves, not an ounce of dislike or meanness in them, just this endless, quiet acceptance of all that you were. “I meant it. But—”

Pyrrha shook her head. “Then don’t feel sorry. You shouldn’t.” Now she _did_ reach out and touch her, taking Weiss’s hand in both of her own, her fingertips barely touching her, leaving drops of water on the back of her hand. “I admire that part of you, you know. I’m a little jealous of the way you get angry. The way you’re honest without even trying.”

“Some people would call that being easy to read, you know.” The boat was still in the water but for some reason it felt like they were going around and around in circles, like the scenery was blurring around them, like the house and the shore and the water were all disappearing. “And for the record, that’s not something people usually say about me. You just pay too close attention.”

Pyrrha let Weiss’s hand slip free. “Another one of my bad habits,” she said.

“If you want to be more honest,” Weiss said, “all you have to do is tell me something honest, you know. Like _really_ honest.”

Pyrrha smirked. “Aren’t you being a little too obvious about your intentions here?”

“You’ll make us both happy, then.” Weiss leaned forward, maybe feeling overly thrilled about where the conversation had suddenly taken them. “Come on. Tell me anything.”

Something she’d never told anyone else. That was what Weiss wanted to hear more than anything.

Pyrrha leaned in, too, like they were kids sharing a secret beneath a blanket, like she didn’t want to be overheard. She smelled like citrus and mint, and Weiss felt a little infatuated, a little transfixed by the low hum of her voice. “Um, when you said all that earlier, how I sounded lonely, how I think too much about everyone else, it surprised me a little. I’d never thought about myself like that.” She let out a breath through her nose, her shoulders curling inward. “And then I realized I couldn’t tell you if you were right or wrong. I just…when I thought about what kind of person I was, I just drew this _blank_. There was nothing. It scared me, honestly.”

Weiss stilled and held her gaze and waited for her to go on, afraid of breaking whatever spell had come over them. Pyrrha licked her lips and said, “I don’t know if what you said is true, but it _felt_ like the truth. Like if there was anyone who could tell me the truth about me, it was you.”

“Me?” Weiss picked at the chipped paint again, shifting uncomfortably. “Sorry to disappoint you, but before today, I thought you were like…suspiciously perfect. I’m just as clueless as anyone else.”

“But you understand it.” There was an intensity to Pyrrha’s expression that was new. It caught her off-guard. “Being told what kind of things are meant for you, feeling like you can’t get greedy for anything else. And if you lose sight of yourself, at least you didn’t hurt anyone. At least you’re loved.”

 _At least you’re loved_. Weiss knew what she meant even more than Pyrrha probably realized. She had tried and tried to live like that, in a way that made everyone happy, but in the end that was impossible. It had always been impossible.

“What kinds of things…” Weiss bit the inside of her lip, wondering why it was so hard to ask. “What kinds of things would you be greedy over, if you could?”

Shockingly—and Weiss meant it, it really came as a shock—Pyrrha sat straight up, her face reddening all the way to the ears. “…What?” She gripped the sides of the boat, like she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

“I mean, what do you want?” Weiss couldn’t help but feel that this was the thread that would make the rest of the stitches come loose. “Really?”

And suddenly Weiss wondered just what had been so hard to read about Pyrrha, after all. Because the look she was giving her right then, a look she could barely seem to contain, was painfully, ridiculously clear in its meaning.

Oh. _Oh_. “Fuck,” Weiss breathed. “I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not—”

“Since when?” she demanded.

Pyrrha gave a shaky laugh. “Since always, I guess. That’s what it feels like.”

“ _Always_?” Christ, it was all starting to catch up with her. All the times she’d dropped by Spring Hill to see Yang and Pyrrha had been there, had made a point to greet her, had once given her a potted snowdrop and said it _just reminded me of you_. Those times when they’d shared a class and Weiss had turned and Pyrrha had been looking in the complete opposite direction, at nothing. The way Pyrrha’s hands had barely touched her, like she was afraid of the way she really wanted to touch her.

Weiss felt her heartbeat in her chest in a way she hadn’t in a while. Like the little hammers that fell on piano strings, sounding out the chord. And Pyrrha hadn’t even kissed her. She hadn’t done anything but tell her something honest, something she hadn’t ever told anyone else.

When they finally made it to the other shore, it was hard for either of them to fully meet each other’s eyes. Weiss hadn’t exactly been expecting a _confession_ of all things when she’d asked Pyrrha to come with her, but she couldn’t say it didn’t make her happy, either.

The beach house was just past the trees, at the end of the overgrown path, but Weiss found herself hesitating at the lip of the water.

Pyrrha’s touched the back of her shoulder. “I don’t want you to feel awkward, you know,” she said. “Or like you have to answer my feelings at all. I know how you feel about Yang still.”

Weiss blinked. “About Yang…?”

“You still love her.”

God, she was serious, wasn’t she? “How long do you plan on sabotaging yourself like that?” Seeing Pyrrha’s confusion, Weiss sighed and pinched her nose. “I mean, sure, I have a lot of feelings about Yang. I’m fucking angry at her. I wish I could kick her ass. And no matter how angry or sad she makes me, I’ll always love her.” Maybe it would be a mistake to say anything else, but some other voice in the back of her head told her she’d better say it now or she’d regret it. “But not the way you’re thinking. She’s…she’s family. Her and Ruby are the realest family I’ve ever had.”

The longer Pyrrha stood there, staring, the more the color began to come back into her face. (No one would ever believe her, Weiss thought. No one would ever believe Pyrrha fucking Nikos could look this embarrassed. And _cute_.) Finally, she gave a self-deprecating laugh, her head falling into her hand. “I think _I’m_ the stupid one here.”

Weiss stepped up close to her, so close Pyrrha’s breath stuttered and caught in her throat, close enough to feel that gravity-like feeling. The way she felt pulled in like how things were pulled in by the tide and made smooth.

“You’re too fucking tall,” Weiss murmured. “If you don’t stoop a little—”

Pyrrha bent and kissed her, her hand cupping her jaw, curling around the back of her neck. Weiss smiled against her lips and leaned into it.

~

There was just one path, but Weiss held Pyrrha’s hand through the woods, anyway. She didn’t want to let go of that warmth yet.

The house came fully into view and Weiss was a little startled by the sight of it. The same pale blue color that she remembered. The same wide, lightless windows. The same trees. Everything was how it’d been left.

Pyrrha came up beside her. “Is it how you remember it?” she asked.

Weiss shook her head, her hand squeezing Pyrrha’s. “Smaller,” she said. “Somehow, it looks smaller.”

Pyrrha smiled. “No, I think it’s that you’ve grown.”


End file.
